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Two-speed Britain: Major study reveals impact of gap in Internet access between rural and urban area

Two-speed Britain: Major study reveals impact of gap in Internet access between rural and urban area

02 September 2015

Two speed Britain: new report looks at divide between internet access in rural and urban areas

The gap between urban and rural Internet speeds risks damaging business, adding to farming costs, driving young people away from areas in which they have grown-up, and deterring retirees from moving to some areas of the country.

These are the conclusions of a detailed academic study into internet access by the dot.rural RCUK Digital Economy Research Hub at the University of Aberdeen, and the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, as part of the Oxford Internet Surveys.

They have published a report ‘Two-Speed Britain: Rural Internet Use’ based on the most detailed survey so far of rural Internet users, which shows that more than one million people in Britain are excluded or face challenges in engaging in normal online activities because they live in remote rural areas not linked up with high-speed broadband.

By looking separately at ‘deep rural’ (remote), ‘shallow rural’ (less remote) and urban Internet users, researchers say they are able to highlight the true nature of this divide.

They found that in urban areas just five per cent of those sampled had an average broadband speed below 6.3 Mbits/sec. However, in deep rural areas, over half (53 %) of people were unable to achieve this modest speed at which an album of 10 songs would typically take about one minute to download, 200 photographs a little over four minutes, and a movie about 18 minutes.

Professor John Farrington, of the University of Aberdeen and lead author of the report, said their findings indicated the scale of the problem for deep rural areas in particular, and that the digital gap is currently widening, rather than closing.

“This report clearly demonstrates there is a growing social and economic gap between those who are connected and those who are not, the ‘digitally excluded’,” he said. “It is generally seen in differences between remote rural internet use on the one hand, and less remote, rural and urban internet use on the other.

“This broadband speed gap between urban and especially deep rural areas is widening: it will begin to narrow as superfast reaches more rural areas but better-connected, mostly urban, areas will also increase speeds at a high rate. This means faster areas will probably continue to get faster, faster with slow speed areas left lagging behind.”

This broadband speed gap between urban and especially deep rural areas is widening: it will begin to narrow as superfast reaches more rural areas but better-connected, mostly urban, areas will also increase speeds at a high rate. This means faster areas will probably continue to get faster, faster with slow speed areas left lagging behind."
Professor John Farrington

Principal investigator of the Oxford Internet Surveys, Professor William Dutton, from the University of Oxford, said: “This is the first time we have captured data to clearly show the depth of the divide between those living in remote rural parts of Britain and the rest of the country. The digital gap is not just due to age, income or education. We show that slower broadband speeds are barring many rural communities from engaging in the social or commercial online opportunities enjoyed by those in towns and cities.”

The report shows the gap is most pronounced in upland areas of Scotland, Wales and England, but also in many areas in lowland rural Britain. It affects 1.3 million people in deep rural Britain, and many more in less remote areas with poor Internet connection: 9.2 million people live in ‘shallow’ rural areas.

Professor Farrington added: “Rural businesses are penalised because they are unable to take advantage of the commercial efficiencies afforded by the Internet, as in the creative industries, or have to resort to the use of paper systems which are more costly, as in the farming sector where there is a push to move administration such as sheep registrations online.

“All these issues can potentially create a new tipping point for digitally poorly connected rural areas, including: losing businesses; adding to farming’s costs; making out-migration more likely for young people; and in-migration less likely for retirees or the economically active.”

He said that the issue needs to be addressed if the UK Government agenda of Digital by default’, with government services being delivered online, is to be achieved.

“There is a drive to make public services ranging from registering to vote to applying for a visa or making a tax return ‘digital by default’, and simpler, clearer and faster to use,” he added.

“Based on the findings of our report, this can’t be achieved until better connection is universal. The ‘universal’ broadband target of 2 Mbits/sec will be inadequate to fulfil this aim.

“An element of policy should be to improve the interface between public, private and community efforts in improving deep rural broadband speeds”

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Notes for Editors

dot.rural is the RCUK Digital Economy Hub, based at the University of Aberdeen, focusing on the rural digital economy. Rural areas have specific characteristics that create challenges around issues such as quality of life and wealth creation. These include: small, often dispersed populations; narrow and uneven channels of information flow; rapid change in population structures and economic activity bases; and restricted access to digital infrastructure. We believe that rural areas of the UK can, through the user-led application of digital technology, be more economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. Our aim is to harness the Hub's expertise with a range of partners to realise this ambition. Our activities are organised around nine challenges: Digital Society, Enterprise & Culture, Healthcare, Intelligent Information Infrastructures, Intelligent Mobility, Internet Engineering, Natural Language Generation & Affective Communication, Natural Resource Conservation and Social Media

Key findings of the report include:

Some 80.7 percent of the British population live in urban areas compared with 19.3% in areas defined as ‘rural’ by the government. For this study, researchers scaled up the numbers living in remote rural areas in 2013, and those in less remote and urban areas accordingly. Their model has produced a high-resolution lens that identifies patterns and differences between rural and urban users, as well as those in remote rural areas as compared with those close to urban areas.

The highest broadband speed in any of the sampled deep rural areas, 17.4 Mbits/sec, was lower than the average speed for the urban areas.

Superfast broadband (30+Mbits/sec) was not available to any of the deep rural respondents in the survey of a total of 1090 rural residents across Britain.

Broadband speeds allowing access to the BBC iPlayer (minimum of 3.5 Mbits./sec) are most common in urban areas.

Only 5% of the urban sample lived in an area where the average speed was 6.3 Mbits/sec or less, compared to 46% of shallow rural and 53% of deep rural residents.

Government-led initiatives, in partnership with the internet service providers such as BT, are being rolled to provide higher speed broadband to rural areas. However, the study suggests the broadband speeds will increasingly fall behind those of urban areas.

‘Data heavy’ activities such as streaming, gaming and creation of content such as video is significantly less likely in areas with speeds of 3.5 Mbits/sec or less, compared with those with speeds of over 3.5Mbits/sec.

Social networking online is less common among users with the lowest broadband speeds than those with speeds of over 3.5Mbits/sec.

38% of Internet users in deep rural areas, with speeds of 3.5Mbits/sec or less, considered their connection was ‘too slow’.

The broadband speed gap between urban and especially deep rural areas is widening: it will begin to narrow as superfast reaches more rural areas but better-connected (mostly urban) areas will also increase speeds at a high rate. Faster areas will probably continue to get faster, faster.

The Government agenda of ‘Digital by default’, with government services being delivered online, can’t be achieved until better connection is universal. The ‘universal’ broadband target of 2 Mbits/sec will be inadequate to fulfil this aim.

Poor connection in rural Britain can impose financial penalties on farmers completing animal passports and registrations, and on rural businesses. Creative digital businesses, for example, producing art, music and video, have difficulty in meeting their clients’ requirements and deadlines.

Poor connection makes it difficult, if not impossible, to be a ‘next generation’ household using multiple devices for social media, video, music, gaming, content creation, and business.

Younger people feel ‘left out’ of their peer groups who often have better connection-they can be told that they ‘shouldn’t be on the Internet’ with such slow connection. They become accustomed to high-speed connection at school, college or university, and return home to find they are digitally excluded.

Older people can make positive use of the Internet in social networking, in saving money while shopping online, and browsing generally: they can feel ‘connected to the outside world’, important for their well-being, even though not a substitute for face-to-face socializing.

All these issues can potentially create a new tipping point for digitally poorly connected rural areas, including: losing businesses; adding to farming’s costs; making out-migration more likely for young people; and in-migration less likely for retirees or the economically active.

Issued by

The Communications Team
Directorate of External Relations, University of Aberdeen, King's College, Aberdeen